


and then you're someone you are not

by apatternedfever



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, after the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatternedfever/pseuds/apatternedfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once a Queen in Narnia, always a Queen. Even when her kingdom has deserted her and her life has been torn apart time and again, Susan Pevensie is still a Queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and then you're someone you are not

When she's still young again, a teenager for the second time around, she stares at herself in the mirror in the mornings and reminds herself, "Once a Queen of Narnia, always a Queen of Narnia".  
  
At first, it's a reminder that it may not be gone forever. That one day, Narnia may come calling her back. Until it does, and somehow in doing so manages to make it harder to survive than the first time around.  
  
"Once a Queen, always a Queen," she tells herself, after Caspian, after Aslan banishes her, after it's clear Narnia doesn't want her anymore. Cutting out the words doesn't help her forget where she first heard them, but it does the job. Queens do not sleep till they're dragged from their bed, they don't let their grades slip because they can't stop dreaming of a place that's kicked them out twice, and they certainly don't refuse to talk to people because they aren't from the right country. When she says it to herself like that, it's almost like her duty, to make friends, to keep her grades up, to dress up and put on her makeup and smile through each day like her heart isn't in a hundred pieces.  
  
Long after she's hardened herself against the difficulties of each day, long after the times comes when nobody would think to describe her as gentle, long after anyone in Narnia would recognize her, after she's buried Narnia so far down in her memory that she no longer remembers it was a talking lion and not her little sister who first called her Queen Susan -- long after there's no one left alive in the world that remembers the silly old title from their silly old game but her, she still uses the words as a reminder. She holds her head high and meets her eyes in the mirror, steeling herself against the pains in her heart that have started anew, and she reminds herself that she is a Queen, and she will act like it, no matter what.


End file.
